news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8259044.stm

So two children are locked up and put on trial....

For writing an essay in creative English and doodling in a journal saying they wanted to blow things up.

Er......how can the Police arrest and stage a show trial for this ? it is pathetic and crazy.

Does this mean that novelists who imagine terror events or rapes or murders are now going to be arrested by the UK police ( just in case they carry out their stories )

What made it so laughable is that in their story they were going to drive a Lorry to a Shopping Centre.....despite the fact both were under 16 and could not drive and did not own a van or lorry or have any way of getting one.

Setting off some fireworks and filming it on a camera phone became "them having bombs" - so dont anyone organise a firework display because you may be arrested under terror laws.

Our country has gone mad. Our media should not have Licked the Corporate Police Bottom on this by covering the story as if it were true......

Thank God we have trial by jury. The court should have thrown this trial out on day one.

The cost to us taxpayers ? Another million - perhaps another 10 jobs lost in cutbacks next year due to Police incompetence.

I would like to see THE POLICE and CPS people involved with this SACKED for GROSS MISCONDUCT in PUBLIC OFFICE. They should not be allowed to get away with such an awful thing - it is worse child abuse than most cases that come before court to do this to 2 innocent teenage boys.

I must say I'm with BR and giles on this - stupid, absurd, ludicrous prosecution and it really does show the police in their true light; high profile media coverage and they are drooling with lust.

You can count me in too. Such accord must surely be a worrying development.

we had a bus stolen here by 2 15 year olds which ended up on a pavement in Sheffield narrowly missing a bus stop packed with people.

and I need to remind you guy(s) that the police only gather information. it is the CPS who decide how to act

Dear me, those naughty 15 year olds. One day someone will decide they are old enough to know their own minds sexually.

The problem is, Mike, that when the police have an agenda (high profile witch hunt) they work hand in hand with the CPS to construct a case that will get likely convictions.

If they both sniff headlines and budget justification, they prosecute even when they know the victim of their persecution is innocent.

true madness...and I refer to my comment on the Sean Hodgson thread;

while the plod is chasing these inane stories-Scotland Yard admitted 4 years ago that there were around 10 fully organised untouchable crime gangs in the UK who have turn-overs of billions of pounds annually and have become so entrenched it would take years to unravel them...just as US enforment took 2 decades to bust some of the top Mafia gangs (which are re-grouping).

And it's sooo much the same her in Australia as I'm personally involved in a bizarre plot where the truth is unravelling but so difficult to prove and the police have desperately tried to play catch-up.

They are referred to as "bikie gangs" and when I was discussing this with my solicitor that I was astonished that the suspect didn't seem to be into leathers or driving a Harley he replied "you dill-they are driving Bentelys and living in penthouses and have linked up with the UK gangs"

And as politicians desperately try to bring in new laws to break them up-declaring their "club-houses" illegal meeting places, they have already begun to take over community clubs-a bridge card club in one instance where they not only booted out the members and got hold of the valuable property, they can hold meetings under the guise of a bridge night !..it's so Godfather & Goodfellas it isn't funny...and where are the police ?...chasing school boys and their fantasies